Do the best you can, but don?t expect to win.

EB: In ?The Wisdom of Sustainability?, you described consumerism as a ?demonic religion?. Consumerism is one of the main drivers of the climate crisis.Why and how can itbe described from a Buddhist point of view as a demonic religion?

SS: From the Buddhist point of view, the three root causes of suffering are greed, hatred and delusion. Consumerism promotes greed. Greed now dominates global society,through advertising in the media and becausetransnational corporations are in control. It is linked with hatred and violence. Violence is on the whole controlled by politicians, but more politicians are now under the control of transnational corporations. So greed is now in control of hatred.

Greed and hatred go together. People want more and more, and if they don?t get it, violence takes place. But underneath everything is delusion. People on the whole don?t know who they are ? they aspire for more power, money and luxury, whatever. These are the three root causes of our suffering.

I think we Buddhists should not simply preach. We should concretize it. That?s why I keep saying consumerism is an expression of greed. Most governments?even democracies, not to mention dictatorships?promote hatred. But deep down it is delusion. Delusion is directly linked with mainstream education, which teaches people how to be clever, and promotes greed and hatred. Mainstream education never teaches people to know who they are. They don?t teach how to breathe properly?the basis is always ?cogito ergo sum??one-dimensional thinking.

If people are taught to breathe properly and mindfully, we can tackle greed, hatred and delusion. That?s why His Holiness the Dalai Lama is such an important example. He is a simple monk who gets up every morning, breathing properly. You can see his wisdom and compassion shining.At the same time he realizes that is not enough. It is a good foundation, but we must learn from science too, and bring it together with wisdom and compassion.Scientific know-how without proper breathing, wisdom & compassion, becomes a servant oftransnational corporations and governments. We must come together now to change ourselves?and also change this world.

The more you promote violence in the media, the more people feel insufficient. Hence consumerism: they will buy this and buy that in order to get happiness. Theynever do get it, but they carry on aspiring for it. Violence is a threat. It creates fear in a population. People hope that by acquiring something, they will overcome the threat. But you can never overcome a general state of insecurity.

EB: Social psychologist Clive Hamilton wrote a powerful book called ?Requiem for a Species?.He describes the ?consumer self??a false selfthat is continually dissatisfied and seeks to establish its identity through buying more goods. Cycles of dissatisfaction, anxiety and debt are created as it triesto acquire more elements of consumer identity. Meanwhile, the judicial position of transnational corporations now gives them legal rights of ?personhood?.

SS: To be protected.

EB: Whencorporate behaviours are examinedusing psychiatric criteria, we discover an institution with a psychopathic personality.

SS: That?s right.

EB: Some people say?We must not condemn corporations, because there are also human beings working there.? Yet if the institution of the corporation is a psychopathic institution, its CEOs serve an ideology that has no empathy.Can we Buddhists afford to be sentimental about this?

SS: No, but if our condemnation comes out of anger,thatwill not help. We would do better to understand and de-structure these corporations. My main concern is social structure that is unjust and violent.Corporations are the biggest and most powerful examples.

Most churches, and even the Buddhist Sangha,also have structuresthat are violent. We cannot ignore that issue.We may talk of ?the future of Buddhism?, but if we don?t tackle social structure,it is mere chatter.To tackle this issue seriously, we have to learn who we are. We re-structure ourselves first, so that we don?t campaign for ego, for victory or for Buddhism.

Humility, compassion and wisdomare necessary to tackle social structures that are violent and unjust. With that in mind, we do need social scientists, anthropologists and mainstream scientists to come together. That is the new possibility. We have to push ahead with it.

EB: So Buddhist analysis in your view has to prioritize understanding of cultural and structural violence?which are less easy to discern than violent colonialism, because they hide themselves in a kind of mental fog. In order to discern the fog, one has to de-structure it within oneself.

SS: Precisely. Gandhi?s success was also his failure. He used truth and nonviolence against oppressors outsideIndia ? the British empire. But he never used Satyagraha(the power of truth and nonviolence) against the unjust social structure within India?thefourvarnas (Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra).

Ambedkar (who led thousands of the Dalit ?untouchable? people to Buddhism) was greatbecause he emerged from beneath the four varnas. Unless that system is tackled, India will remain un-liberated. 60 years after independence. The social structure is still awful. They got rid of one imperialism, but now they blindly follow American neo-imperialism. The suffering of India?s poor carries on and on.

This is why more and more so-called?untouchable?people become Buddhist.

I am happy to talk with them. I say ?You became Buddhists, that?s great. But if you still hate the Brahmins, that doesn?t help. You must learn to cultivate compassion and wisdom, and how to change the social structure?rather than hating the Brahminoppressor. One reason we held our meeting (INEB) here was because I want to listen to the oppressed Buddhist Indians, and I hope they will also learn from us. Together we can change the social structure of this country.

The Japanese monk who led the ceremony this morningpoints out that Japanese Buddhism maintainsa national social structure that is violent and unjust. Japan promotes violence, particularly in Asia: destroying the environment, importing cheap labour, prostitutes, even wives?because Japanese women are rebelling against male domination. That monk is wonderful. He is one of the few to speak out. I make efforts to meet a small group of such people, who don?t follow the mainstream.

EB: In America now we see a non-violent struggle confronting the corruption of the political process by Big Oil corporations. On November 6th, people formeda human circle around the White House, carrying posters citing President Obama?s own statements when he was running for election.

SS: That?s great. More and more people are awakening there, and even breathing more correctly! They are learning to question smartness and arrogance. We remain young at heart if we learn to be humble, breathe properly and honour others. I see much in America to be hopeful about. It is a country that has done dreadful things in the last 100 years or so, but it?s not too late to change.

I was involved with the creation of the Buddhist Peace Fellowshipthere. Many wonderful Americans have become Buddhist. Most are well-to-do and white, and theymay not have embraced lifestyle changes that fully reflect the Four Noble Truths. But I think there are real developments. It is a matter of urgency, after all.The world may be irreversibly damaged by climate change during this decade.

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EB: Thegreat danger identified by James Hansen and colleagues (at NASA) is that unless there is a sufficiently rapid change in the energy system?unless we successfully turn back the power of the fossil fuel industry?humanity will lose control of the process. That brings us back to the ?demonic? nature of consumerism and corporations.

SS: Precisely

EB: Simon Baron-Cohen and colleagues at Cambridge University have identified an empathy circuitof 10 interconnected regions in the human brain. It is underactive in psychopathic individuals who commit acts of cruelty. Such a person doesnot feel the normal, involuntary human reaction of empathy for others? feelings: a genetic lesion affects the empathy circuit. We are instinctively repelled by an individual without empathy: we call unfeeling cruelty ?evil?. Baron-Cohenhas defined this on a neurological and genetic level. The demonic or evil is a ?zero-empathynegative? state.

So, what happens when fossil fuels create the greatest profits in human economic history, but are controlled by zero-empathy negativeinstitutions?In 1995, the great evolutionary geneticist Edward Wilson asked ?Is Humanity Suicidal?? Sixteen years later, carbon emissions are out of control andextreme weather events have become ?normal?. Shouldn?t we Buddhists be asking Wilson?s question anew, with all its implications?

SS:This is good for me toknow.I would like to be clear and understand what you say before I can make any meaningful comment. It is very useful for me to learn this information.

Extreme weather led to a major flood right now in my country, Thailand.Three cabinet ministers came out and said they are inexperienced and don?t know how to handle it. Why didn?t those supposedly democratic politicians resign?

We have been uprooted from our own culture. 150 years ago when we opened the country, westerners complained that they could not ride horses, so we built new roads. Now we have so many roads and cars that the natural drainage(of Bangkok) has been lost.

We have abandoned our traditional respect for Mother Earth, MotherRiver andFather Mountain. Now we see them only as material to be consumed, turned into money and subject to technology. We have to pull ourselves back to our roots, while at the same time beingopen to new scientific knowledge. We must change ourselves and society fundamentally, through non-violent action.

To be mindful one must cultivate inner peace. But we must also have kalyanamitra, good friends who have good ideas, with whom we can dialogue. Theyneed not only be Buddhists, they could be Christians or atheists. Thisisn?t a matter of numbers. Afew friends can achieve a lot with technological know-how, commitment,less egoism, more compassion and wisdom.

Time is short and pressing. But with groups of people like this, we may pull through. Even if we don?t pull through, we will have done our best. We must fully do our best?not out of self-concern, but for the next seven generations, and for all species.

We all have Buddha nature. It is my conviction we can pull through.I strongly support creative civil disobedience. I strongly support the Occupy Movement. It is wonderful! We have to use all kinds of tactics. We have to learn to be non-violent. We have to learn to be mindful.